Crumbs of Diverted Destiny
by Octavius Pepper
Summary: "I've always wondered if the spirits changed their minds about us." Zuko and Katara confront the obstacles that ultimately destroy their relationship. Explicit. Written for Zutara Month.


Crumbs of Diverted Destiny

She slips out of the party quietly, dodging Earth Kingdom merchants eager to share their stories of pirates in Fire Nation waters, Northern tribesmen concerned with growing temperatures and shrinking icebergs; problems always find their way to the wife of the Avatar.

The night is cool for the Fire Nation, and she shivers in her silk. Her backless gown does nothing to stop her breeze-tossed hair from raising goose bumps on her skin. She crosses her arms and leans against the balcony, staring into the fire-lit gardens below.

A shadow blocks the light from the party, but she doesn't look up. She's been waiting for him.

A hand ghosts lightly to her hip, and when she leans into it, his grip becomes firmer. His other hand trails up her arm, to her shoulder, her back, down the salacious curve of her breast and to her waist. He scoops her hair to the right, exposing her back fully to the night air. He plants a kiss on her neck, runs his thumb down her spine, and she shudders. He works his mouth up to her earlobe, catching it between his teeth.

She spins. It's sudden, and catches him off-guard. A moment of unbalance before they are connected by the lips, tongues clashing, her hand twisted in his perfectly done hair. He maneuvers them so they are against the wall adjacent to the balcony doors, invisible to his party guests. She kisses down his jaw line, finds his pulse point and sucks _hard_. His own involuntary moan awakens him to the dangers of this location, making him think especially of the weedy little advisor who has a knack of finding him _anywhere_.

"C'mon," he whispers, and tugs her into a servant's passage that she knows as well as he does. They giggle breathlessly as they dash down the corridor, pausing at intervals to kiss again, until they reach the door to his bedroom. He pushes her up against the wall and trails kisses down her throat, tugging away the nothingness that is her gown until he finds her nipple, erect and inviting on her smooth breast. He sucks it greedily into his mouth and is rewarded by her sharp intake of breath as she clutches his head to her chest.

He palms the other mound through the silk, squeezing the nipple between his knuckles, and her mewling redoubles. She works her own hand underneath his ceremonial robes with difficulty and palms his stiffened member. He groans, but she frowns at him.

"You, sir, have far too many clothes on."

He grins. "And yours, my lady, are far too easy to take off."

She smiles deviously, and pushes the door into his bedroom, dropping one shoulder strap, then the other, as she walks toward his bed. "Oh, I know."

He pauses for a moment before wresting himself free of his garments, getting tangled in the clothes as they pool around his feet in his haste to follow her.

She lays naked on his bed, hair fanned behind her. Her skin has a dusky, seductive glow in the candlelight, and she nuzzles the red sheets.

"I've missed this bed," she says. He has too. Not the bed itself, though he never sleeps in here anymore, but the haven that she made it become. They'd spent eons in it, exploring each other, getting to know themselves. Back when destiny seemed mutable and they thought they'd already shouldered their fair share of the world's burden.

Perhaps they'd been stupid from the beginning, ignoring the realities of their circumstances, the expectations of their people, the fact that their love lives were one, big, international incident just waiting to happen. But he loved her, he justified. Because _she_ was the one he had jumped in front of lightening for, and _she_ had been the one to help him search for his mother, and _she_ had been the one to hold him when he discovered the truth of his mother's death, and _she_.

But there was Aang, of course, and she loved him, and to be honest, Zuko loved him too. Enough to feel terrible for what he was doing, enough for them to tell themselves, each time, that this was the last.

Except the one time she and Aang had a fight too big, about those Fire Nation colonists in the Earth Kingdom, and he thought, for a glorious moment, that maybe it really would all work out. She'd certainly stomped over to the Fire Nation quick enough.

"I put my neck out for you," she said. "Let's make this happen." They spent their time poring over maps, looking at supply lines, having meetings with advisors and ambassadors and any schmuck who had an opinion, and finally presented the plans to the Avatar—who maintained a stiff formality.

"Republic City?" he'd said, and looked at the long list of names—Earth Kingdom nobles, merchants, kings, peasants—who approved of the plan, and finally nodded his consent. It was not lost on either of them the significance of this. Zuko had won, at least for now, even though Katara cried later and wouldn't speak to him for days, and his victory left a slightly acrid taste in his mouth.

They kept their liaisons discreet, conducting themselves with a polite aloofness when in others' company. But alone, each night, they lost themselves in each other, gathering the other's moans and sighs as if they were currency and could be spent to make this last just a day longer. Sometimes they sparred, out in the garden by moonlight, and Zuko complained that it gave her the natural advantage, and she just smirked and said she'd take it easy on him. This usually ended with him iced to a tree, her purring down his neck and asking how he liked it with the tables turned. He liked it very much.

Other specters existed, though; Ozai supporters were gaining strength in the Northern provinces, and more than one assassination attempt was foiled on its way to Zuko's plate. After a while, the threats came for Katara, too.

"DEATH TO THE WATER TRIBE WHORE," read one note, sent by messenger hawk directly to her bedroom. She managed to douse the included explosive in time.

"Do you think they know?" she asked Zuko tearfully, and he shrugged, adding "How could they?" But there were servants and jealous courtiers and who knows who else who might've seen them, and rumor spread so that even the peasants in the fields were muttering about the Avatar's girl who had taken up with the Fire Lord.

"Where is this going, Zuko?" she said one night, staring at the canopy of his bed. He had no answer for her, no comfort to offer, and so only shook his head and nestled her into the crook of his arm.

He surreptitiously did research the rest of the week, looking through old genealogical records, trying desperately to find some precedent for their situation, but there was none. Fire Nation royalty had always married Fire Nation, benders or non-benders, but Fire Nation nonetheless.

"I've ignored precedent before," he said, but she shook her head. "Not for something like this. You'll undo everything you've done. Our children could be waterbenders! There's no way they'd ever succeed to the throne."

She packed her bags, resigned her position as Water Tribe advisor, and left by merchant vessel for the South Pole. He insisted on walking her down to the docks. "I'll always love you," she said, and pressed a small package into his hand before carefully stepping up the gangplank. He waved at the ship until his sight became blurry with unshed tears. He turned instead to the small pocket of cloth clenched between his fingers.

It was her blue necklace, the carved stone smooth and shiny, the ribbon fraying and dirty. He was seized by a sudden image of the same necklace on the deck of prison ship, in his hand, held in triumph, held up tauntingly to a defiant girl tied to a tree.

He swallowed hard and turned back to the palace.

Two weeks later, a message came from the South Pole, not from Katara but from her father, asking when the ship had left the Fire Nation, as it had yet to arrive in the south. A hard knot of panic formed in Zuko's stomach and he made a nuisance of himself in the army communications headquarters, demanding to know what had happened to the ship. Finally a report came in from the North noting an abandoned merchant ship off the coast. A further inspection revealed that it was indeed the one on which she had been traveling.

Zuko raged and deployed an envoy to investigate the disappearance of the crew and cargo, then swallowed his pride and sent a message to Aang: "Katara missing. Ozai supporters suspected."

He himself dressed up as a Fire Navy soldier, took a war balloon from the nearest air-port, and put out that he was taking a short vacation in Ember Island. He pinpointed the last known foci of the rebels and moved out in circles, questioning townspeople, trekking through forests and swamps, all the while thinking of what he would say to her if he found her, _when_ he found her. He'd tell her that he should've never let her leave, that they'd figure it out, to hell with his people and hers, to hell with international relations, he loved her and he wanted to be with her, and that was all that mattered.

Aang was the one that found her, tied up in a cave and unconscious, welts and burns evident on her body and face. The Avatar State, which he'd had under control for years now, exploded forth and he left a crater of destruction in his wake as he flew her to safety on Appa. She woke to his clumsy healing attempts and he laughed through his tears to see her alive. She smiled back.

Zuko returned to the palace and pretended to have enjoyed a relaxing vacation. He focused on repressing the last of the Ozai supporters, then turned his attentions to the nascent Republic City. He did not attend their wedding, citing work, but sent them an elaborately-constructed miniature of the city-to-be, complete with a small statue of Aang on an island in the harbor. He discreetly commissioned a matchmaker.

The tenth anniversary of Ozai's fall heralds a vast number of parties and celebrations, especially in the new city, and the old Gaang is reunited for a while. Zuko brings along Li Jin, a Fire Nation beauty from the North (picked primarily for the loyalty she will bring from those recently rebellious areas) and she gets along reasonably well with the rest of them. Toph is blushingly sporting a handsome young earthbender she met at her metal-bending school, and Suki is heavily pregnant with her second child. Sokka divides his time nervously checking on their first child, who they've left with a minder, and asking Suki if she's about to go into labor. "Stop _asking_, Sokka!"

Aang's a handsome 23-year-old, with a small beard that he is very proud of, and he looks at Katara with such fervent admiration that Zuko feels guilty even glancing in her direction. Only glance he does, because she is radiant, and he hasn't seen her in a year, and she is _Katara._ She catches his gaze once, and smiles sadly, but turns back to the others, and Zuko wonders if the rest are really as oblivious as they seem to be.

"Shall we get a group portrait now?" A commissioned painter assembles them to his liking, shooing away Suki and Li Jin and Toph's boyfriend, saying "Just the original five, if that's alright," and Suki grumbles that she was on their side long before Zuko was. Aang pulls Katara to his side, making her laugh, and Zuko crosses his arms while Sokka thumps him heartily on the shoulder.

"Look at me, now," the painter commands, looking pointedly at Toph, who bristles and points accusingly at the painter. "Look, buddy—"

"Toph," Katara says through a strained smile. "Just do what he says…"

They roundly abuse the painter afterward in Zuko's suite over firewhiskey shots and sake. "Geddit?" Sokka hiccups through his third glass. "Sake, Suki, hahaha…"

Suki, who is talking to Li Jin about her martial arts experience, rolls her eyes. "That's nice, dear."

Aang is deep in conversation with Toph and her boyfriend about the more delicate techniques of metal-bending. "I mean, I can bend it, but I'm still forcing it more than I like. When I watch Toph…"

Zuko finds himself on a couch next to Katara, who is mid-way through her second glass of wine.

"So, Li Jin seems really nice."

"Oh, um, yes, she is." He pauses awkwardly. "I'm asking her to marry me soon."

Katara's eyebrows shoot up. "Really?" she squeaks, then hurriedly takes another sip of wine. "I mean, that's great. Yes. I'm happy for you." She takes another gulp.

"Are you? Happy, I mean?" His gaze is intense, and she squirms uncomfortably.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose I am." She pauses, looks over at Aang who is still deep in conversation. "I mean, I miss you. Like, a lot."

"But you have Aang."

"Yes," she says, reaching up automatically to play with the necklace at her throat. Zuko realizes Aang must have carved her a new one. He wonders what she told him happened to the other one. "I do."

"Come to my ball next month," he blurts out suddenly, then lowers his voice. "Just… Come. Just you." He looks at the floor. "I miss you, too."

He heaves himself off the couch and goes to fill up his glass of sake. Katara stares at him, shocked but tempted. She glances guiltily at Aang, but refuses to make up her mind. A month is a long time.

He doesn't expect her to show. He feels guilty for even asking, putting her in that position. But then there she is, glittering in a gauzy, silken dress that leaves little to the imagination.

And he knows what she is telling him, knows that he has to make this time count, because it really will be their last. And so he follows her when she sneaks out to the balcony, watches her bend over the railing to look down into the gardens, to watch the candlelight sparkle off the small ponds. He approaches her cautiously, for a moment doubting his interpretation of her actions, but she leans into his touch and he can't keep his hands off her.

It feels so right to be back here with him that she forgets to be feel guilty, and the nagging little voice that has been in the back of her mind since she decided to come here tonight dies away. His scar is rough under her fingertips, and she kisses his jaw-line, coming to rest at his pulse point. His moan startles her, and his laughing golden eyes meet hers as he whispers, "C'mon."

They race through the secret hallways, laughing, kissing. His hand envelopes hers, his tongue is perfect velvet against her skin. She gasps and struggles with his robes, trying to reciprocate, before giving up and reprimanding him. "You, sir, have far too many clothes on."

"And yours, my lady, are far too easy to take off." She grins, thinking of the little dress shop in Ba Sing Se that assured her it would garner any man's attention, "even a prince's!"

She slips it off, one shoulder at a time, trying to be seductive. "Oh, I know."

She steps toward the bed and is seized with a wave of nostalgia. The sheets—what had he said they were made out of? Cotton?—always felt so light and comfortable compared to the furs she slept on at home. "I've missed this bed." And she has, enormously, along with the man who used to sleep in it with her. Aang will always be her best friend, she reflects sadly, but Zuko is the love of her life.

He steps toward her, finally untangled from his ceremonial clothes. The scar on his chest—it's ten years old now, she muses—is dull red in the candlelight. His hair has come undone and falls to his chest in silky strands.

She leans up to kiss him, and he catches her lower lip between his teeth, sucking it into his mouth gently. He climbs onto the bed, using his arms to keep himself hovering above her. His hair creates a curtain around them, and she brushes it out of his eyes, her fingers lingering on his scar. She leans up to kiss it, like she always used to when he was in particular need of comfort, and the move is so familiar that he reacts without thinking.

He shifts his weight to one elbow, using his other arm to trace down her back to her thigh, then back up to rest on her breast, worrying her nipple with his thumb. She sighs, and he covers her mouth with his, slipping his tongue between her lips. She fists one hand in his hair while the other scratches lightly up and down his back, coming to rest on his muscular shoulders. She opens her legs a bit, wrapping a calf around his lower back, and, getting the message, he moves his hand down to rest at the apex of her thighs. He spreads her folds and she squeaks. He grins against her mouth, breaks their kiss and nips at her collar bone before catching her other nipple with his lips.

She groans when he finally pushes his finger into her. He strokes a few times before adding another, and she turns into a whimpering mess. He pulls them out, rubbing her clit with her own juices, then thrusts them back in again.

Her mouth is everywhere; she pulls him down to lay open-mouthed kisses on his lips, his nose, his scar. She tugs his earlobe with her teeth and works down his neck in a frenzy. Her hand migrates south and finds his throbbing member, squeezing it and rubbing the pre-cum over the head. He groans into the crook of her neck and thrusts into her thigh. She guides him toward her own opening, and he pushes himself into her.

The heady scent of sex fills the air as they begin to make love, finding a rhythm. He reaches down to stroke her clit and she shrieks, her head thrown back and her nails digging into his back. He can feel her losing control, her rhythm becoming erratic, and he speeds up his pace; he wants to come with her.

Her core contracts and her legs begin to spasm wildly. Her greedy teeth find his neck and clamp down hard, and this is all he needs to send him over the edge. He spills into her with a long groan, which mixes with her own incoherent cries.

They lay together for a moment, trying to hold off the truth that inevitably returns with the end of an orgasm. He kisses her shoulder. She enjoys the warmth and weight of his chest.

"I'll always love you, you know," she says when he finally rolls off her. He doesn't say anything; he doesn't need to. He merely pulls her hand to his mouth, kissing each digit one by one, then places it on his chest, directly over his scar, where the beats of his heart say _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

Aang is ecstatic when Kya is born, but Katara can only feel relieved. Dark skin and blue eyes, there is no trace of her father in her—whoever he might be.

Still, Katara watches her closely as she grows, picking up on subtle clues. She has his lips, she thinks, and the water she bends tends to be on the warmer side. Katara shakes her head at herself; she's grasping at straws—she'll probably never know.

The children are old enough to travel with by the 20th anniversary of the end of the war and the Gaang reunites once again in Republic City, which has become a sprawling metropolis. They're all mostly based here anyway, what with Aang presiding over the council, Toph running the police force, and Sokka teamed up with some guy who used to be a cabbage merchant and who has a knack for machinery. Only Katara and Zuko, the original conceivers of the plan for the city, remain elsewhere; she in the South Pole with her waterbenders and her children, and he in the Fire Nation with his family and his throne.

Between them all, there are ten children, mostly Sokka and Suki's, who seem to think it's a competition. Tenzin and Lin, still in diapers, roll around on a blanket watched over by Toph, who has a surprising maternal streak. Bumi tries to keep up with Sokka and Suki's three boys, and Suki has all the girls busy with fans in a corner of the great room of Aang's imperial suite. ("It's not imperial!" Aang protests.)

Li Jin and Katara watch their daughters twirl and slash, laughing when they fall over the long skirts of their Kyoshi warrior costumes.

"How old is Ursa now?" Katara asks. Ursa is a beauty, and heir-apparent to the throne.

"Almost eight," Li Jin smiles. "What about Kya?"

"Just turned nine," Katara says proudly. Her daughter's turning into something of a prodigy.

They watch for a while longer before Li Jin excuses herself to use the restroom. Zuko takes her place.

"The best fire bending tutors money can buy, and she turns to fans," he sighs, flashing Katara a crooked smile. She laughs.

"At least she has a back-up if she ever needs to hide her identity."

But he shakes his head. "She's got dagger training, too."

His gaze falls to Kya. They both see it at the same time, her crooked grin as she slashes the air with her fans.

The expression is 100% Zuko.

Zuko whips his head around to face Katara; his look is one of shock, but slowly turns into accusation.

She appeals to him silently, though she is not sure what she is trying to tell him_. I wasn't sure. You had just as much information as me. What difference would it have made anyway?_

He glares back. _You should've told me. It would have made all the difference._

She shakes her head sadly. He goes back to watching Kya, drinking in her appearance, her movements, her expressions. She notices his eyes have become glossy, then watches as he rubs away an unshed tear and her heart breaks a little bit more. She gets up, hurries to the room that is technically hers but that she never uses; Aang usually visits them at the South Pole.

A shadow fills her doorway, and she whirls about. It's him. Of course it's him. He is a big man, but he stands helpless and awkward, as if his own weight is suddenly too much to carry. She bites her lip, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and her voice cracks so she barely makes any sound at all.

He steps forward and catches her waist, pulling her against his chest. He wraps his arms around her, and they stand there, tears dripping from his nose into her hair, her own tears slowly soaking his shirt.

They end up on the bed, not embracing, or kissing. Just barely touching, as if to make sure the other is still there.

"You know," he says, his voice gruff. "I've always wondered if the spirits changed their minds about us."

"What do you mean?" she says. She draws small circles on the back of his hand with her thumb.

"Like, we were originally supposed to be together, and they changed their minds, so we weren't. But they were messy with their clean-up, and they left behind crumbs of diverted destiny. And we found them, even though we weren't supposed to."

She smiles in spite of herself. "That a nice way of thinking about it."

He nods. "I think so, too."

A/N: Well this took me by surprise. Zutara Month over on Tumblr was giving me the feels, so I sat down to write and this is what came out. It's possible that I took a mental health day to finish it (except I'm in college so it was really more of a "ditch the one class I had today" day.)

Let's see, explanation. I always wanted a story about Kya being Zuko's, because I really like canon, and I really like Zutara, and it seemed like a plausible thing to have happen. The biggest problem with Zutara was always the inconvenience of it—wrapping up the series in a timely way, having their later lives work out (especially with the whole need-to-repopulate-the-airbenders thing.) I just couldn't see them ever having a real, open, lasting relationship; there were too many obstacles in their way.

I realize I probably didn't do much justice to Aang's character in this one, which is why I mostly just kept him out of the picture. I really do like Aang, and I like that his likeability adds angst Aangst to their affair; they both love him, and they know how much they're hurting him.

Also, I totally disregarded Mai, primarily because I never know what to do with her, and also because I have a peripheral understanding of she and Zuko breaking up in the comics? I haven't read them, but I've seen it around, and this story starts in their late teens/early twenties, by which time I would expect that event already to have happened.

I did try to incorporate elements of the Korra series into this, including (obviously) Republic City, which I think is a perfect mirror of the standoff between Zuko and Aang over Katara. I also dropped in CabbageCorp, and the picture of Grownup!Gaang that was released after the series started. I'd also like to point out that we never see Zuko or Katara in _any of the flashbacks_, which means they were the only two not in Republic City during that time period. Also, they're the only two alive in Korra's time, so maybe Zutara will be canon after all. Fingers crossed!

The whole "crumbs of diverted destiny" thing was an idea I had bouncing around in my head for a while. (It actually sort of came from The Adjustment Bureau.) The creators did originally mean to have Zuko/Katara be endgame, and even though they changed their minds halfway through, the character development and parallels and plot points still exist, which is why there are so many Zutarians.

Oh, and the smut! I've never written smut before, and I gotta say, it's harder than it looks. So many things to illustrate at one time, and there's really only so many words you can use to describe something that is essentially very repetitive. I kept thinking that sports writers would be pretty good at it, because it's all about describing action in an interesting way. Let me know how you thought I did!

So that's all. Hope you liked the story, and please review!

Happy Zutara Month, everyone!

Sam


End file.
